Death Knight Extreme Solo build

Post by Gorilla

I was fooling around with my 80 DK the other day and decided I wanted to see just how far I could go for soloing instances with him. I understand there are folks out there now soloing heroic WoTLK instances and i want to see if I can do that and more.

For this I need the best solo spec, one that focuses on avoidance and self heals, but DPS doesn't hurt just not as important as the other two. I naturally took the 5/5/5 for any tank spec and placed most of my points in Blood of course and thought the Unholy tree would provide a little more benefit then Frost (which is my main DPS spec at the moment). I put points into morbidity because the additional AoE will be helpful for trash and adds. Necrosis was filler, a good dps filler, to get a little lower in the tree. I wanted to get lower to grab Night of the Dead. My ghoul will be used as often as possible, not only for extra DPS but for the healing. So the 90 seconds off the cool down allow me to bring my ghoul up and heal more often. Not sure if that is worth it but that was my thinking.

I was hoping to get some comments and some tips on what I can take/not take to make the spec better. I want to point out I do not want this spec for raiding, PVP, tanking, or anything other then extreme soloing so please try to keep that in mind when you comment.

Post by biohazardd

well for best soloing spec..it would be blood..a tank dps with tank gear is really the best way to solo instances now...its really hard to take a dps in dps gear or even spec and solo WoTLK instances

Post by rocketw

What's the point?I bet you can't solo heroics, the only class that I have seen do it is paladins. They have a much higher block chance, and there is a video on warcraftmoveis where the pally in question explains why he stacks block value for soloing heroics.

Here's my idea.

Since you're a tank, find a healer to run with you all day, find 3 random dps (not hard), and blow throuhg heroics that way rather than soloing them.

You'll just end up dying alot and being frustrated. Trying to save you from yourself.

Post by apocalypsa

What's the point?I bet you can't solo heroics, the only class that I have seen do it is paladins. They have a much higher block chance, and there is a video on warcraftmoveis where the pally in question explains why he stacks block value for soloing heroics.

Here's my idea.

Since you're a tank, find a healer to run with you all day, find 3 random dps (not hard), and blow throuhg heroics that way rather than soloing them.

You'll just end up dying alot and being frustrated. Trying to save you from yourself.

Google mionelol or raegwynn, or try youtube. DK's can solo 80 heroics, and more, they can solo doomwalker.(70 25 man raid). And you dont even need good gear. Just unholy or blood tank spec, above t7.5 tank gear, and death strike.

Post by Lukass5551

What he said. Solo'd Doomwalker today. 500g on him, and i sold the BoE epics for 1500g

Post by Ashigore

Doomwalker doesn't hit you for #$%^ and when he does its for half what a random level 80 heroic mob will.

Soloing level 80 heroics is a whole different ballgame, not saying it cant be done, but comparing it to soloing doomwalker is just silly.

Post by nleonard

What's the point?I bet you can't solo heroics, the only class that I have seen do it is paladins. They have a much higher block chance, and there is a video on warcraftmoveis where the pally in question explains why he stacks block value for soloing heroics.

Here's my idea.

Since you're a tank, find a healer to run with you all day, find 3 random dps (not hard), and blow throuhg heroics that way rather than soloing them.

You'll just end up dying alot and being frustrated. Trying to save you from yourself.

The reason we do a lot of things is because they can be done. We know that we could get a group together to do heroics, we don't care. Have you ever solo'd Onyxia? How about Zul'Gurub? Molten Core? No? then i suggest you go do so.

And thank you for pointing out paladins have a much higher block chance than us, genius.

Post by nleonard

No Bloodworms or Improved Icy Touch? I think consistent heals and 6% reduced damage are more important than more uptime on your emergency button. And my build doesn't have Death Rune Mastery so i can have MOAR death strikes. I also leave out Subversion for more points in Bladed Armor. I find Spell Deflection to not be so great, especially with the nerf to Blade Barrier (when it got reduced to 5% damage taken not 10% parry). Not really nerfed, just nerfed with respect to spell deflection. Unless it is a magic heavy boss, most damage will be coming from melee, and most magic damage will be AoE's, like back before they took old onyxia out, her only magic spells were fireball, fire breath, and deep breath, all AoE's. Generally any other magic damage you will take will be a DoT, so i have always seen spell deflection as a pvp talent.

Post by Gorilla

Reply for rocketw: As many already stated soloing 80 heroics has been done . More to the point I want to do it just to see if I can, for the challenge. I am not currently a tank, I am Frost DPS and have very decent DPS gear. I'm bored of running heroics in groups and I'm not worried about wiping. I have a very large amount of gold I continue to add to playing the AH game. This kind of challenge is interesting and fun to me.

Reply for nleonard: I have not yet solo'd Zul'Gurub or Molten Core, or any raid (vanilla or otherwise). The hardest so far i've done with my dps Frost spec is a few BC heroics. I do plan on doing soloing those raids, probably before I try for 80 heroics to work on my rotation and practicing for 80 Heroics. As for the spec recommendations I've heard that bloodworms are not worth the points, I was considering them and will probably test them out (I do think I'll go through a few specs in the beginning testing out different talents). Good point on the Improved Icy Touch I'll have to rethink that, another thing I missed was the fact that Death Pact is on a 2 minute cooldown so having a faster regen time on my ghoul is only limited help. I'll get rid of Death Rune Mastery and thanks for the info on Spell Deflection. New test spec is here. I also dropped the DnD glyph for Vampiric Blood, thinking the xtra 5 seconds of increased healing would be better then the boost to just ok AoE. Keeping in mind I don't need to worry about threat.

Post by nleonard

also, if you are speccing for soloing, i would take out Morbidity, because i find myself spamming rune strike so much, that death coil doesn't serve that much of a purpose, except when something is out of range of melee. I would probably put these points in virulence for some spell hit (can't tell you how annoying it is when icy touch misses and you don't catch until halfway into your rotation). Some people will say to go for ravenous dead, but that 3% strength is almost negligible. Assume 1k strength. 3% would be 30str, or 60AP, and 7.5 parry rating ... for three talent points.

Another route you could go is putting a few more talent points in frost to pick up lichborne. While under the effects of lichborne, you are considered dead, and you can thus heal yourself with death coil. If you got the minor glyph that makes death coild refund 20 rp when used to heal, you can heal yourself with death coil 4 times starting with 100 RP and still have 20 rp left. This is just a result of me playing around with some leftover talent points that just go towards dps.

Also, you should note that Blood gorged does not increase linearly the more talent points used with regards to the ignoring armor. So while you will not be above 75% health all the time (although with the multitude of self heals i find myself up there quite often) the 10% armor reduction is quite nice as it makes all of your main abilities hit harder (rune strike, heart strike, death strike, melee, not death coil though).

Really, just play around with those extra talent points devoted to dps, find something you like, spend some time on the dummies, just see what you like.

Post by Gorilla

Thanks again for the help. I finished my spec and started testing it out. Did a solo heroic run of Underbog to start. Had a little trouble getting used to the new rotation on the first boss, but after 1 wipe I cleared the instance with no problem. I decided to blog my adventures here.

Post by BlackMojo

And thank you for pointing out paladins have a much higher block chance than us, genius.

This.

Post by Gorilla

That might explain the problems I've been having with Hakkar. At first I thought it was due to stilling having an additional member in my raid group even though he wasn't in the instance with me. At the time I didn't realize you could invite someone in, promote the group to a raid and then have them leave and still remain a raid group. Thanks for the heads up. I don't suppose there is a way to stop them from spawning without re-specing?

Post by nleonard

Thanks again for the help. I finished my spec and started testing it out. Did a solo heroic run of Underbog to start. Had a little trouble getting used to the new rotation on the first boss, but after 1 wipe I cleared the instance with no problem. I decided to blog my adventures here.

ooh, that reminds me, i made a DK blog so long ago on blogspot ("Veteran of the Third War" at veteranofthethirdwar.blogspot.com). You can tell how long ago by reading through the first (and really only) post. it would be nice if i could be a little more diligent and keep this up to date, and still post, even if no one reads it, just have to get all this homework to 0% so i can loot my Emblems of A. Still need a few more years worth so i can turn them in for a

Post by ChocolateThunder

Raegwynn check out some of his vids. Solos ToC, HoL, and yes many death knights solo Doomwalker to get money or just for fun.

Post by Gorilla

Thanks again for the help. I finished my spec and started testing it out. Did a solo heroic run of Underbog to start. Had a little trouble getting used to the new rotation on the first boss, but after 1 wipe I cleared the instance with no problem. I decided to blog my adventures here.

ooh, that reminds me, i made a DK blog so long ago on blogspot ("Veteran of the Third War" at veteranofthethirdwar.blogspot.com). You can tell how long ago by reading through the first (and really only) post. it would be nice if i could be a little more diligent and keep this up to date, and still post, even if no one reads it, just have to get all this homework to 0% so i can loot my Emblems of A. Still need a few more years worth so i can turn them in for a

Excellent I'll check out your blog. Most of the DK blogs I read in the past seem to have died out. Let me know when you start writing again and I'll post a link, not sure many people will see it, we'll have to see how the traffic on mine is. And good luck obtaining .

Post by Gorilla

Raegwynn check out some of his vids. Solos ToC, HoL, and yes many death knights solo Doomwalker to get money or just for fun.

Nice I'll check it out. and wow ToC and HoL, that impressive. Here's hoping I achieve that someday.

Post by Gorilla

A quick update, I decided to progress through the instances I solo. Starting with classic WoW and moving up from there. In classic and BC it seems like I need more dps as my surviving isn't that much of an issue. I do fine on health but I could use more dps so I'll be respecing and removing Blood Worms (causing some problems with Hakkar from Zul'Gurub and possibly others) and adding points into Death Rune Mastery. That will allow me to get some HS instead of DS when I wan the DPS and not the health. I imagine this won't be an issue in WotLK instance so I'll probably have to respec again when I get there.

Post by Rawveggie

Hey Gorilla,

I am liking your idea a lot. I used to solo as a paladin but that can get boring. DKs are just so much fun with their "healing attacks". I'll definitely keep an eye on this thread and your blog. I only have a 74 nelf DK right now, but hopefully he'll be 80 before too long.

Question: Would you mind explaining your rotation? I haven't played a blood spec before and haven't a clue about their rotation. I would appreciate it.

-Raw

Post by joshuhwha

Doomwalker

? what heroic is that?

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